February 2026. Monaco to Turin.
If you’re missing the English pub reports here’s a spoiler.
The first half dozen pints back in Old Blighty are….Beartown, Holt, Tiny Rebel, Harrogate, Thornbridge Jaipur and Abbeydale. And not a duffer in the six.
But first, coffee and croissants in Monte Carlo station, cheaper than Pumpkin in Sheffield,
and a device that charges your phone while you cycle.
Half an hour east of Monaco we were in our third country of the morning, Ventimiglia looking like the Bexhill of the Ligurian coast.
Well, sort of.
500 rabid gentlefolk got off at Ventimiglia (an Untappd wasteland) to look for bargain handbags at the giant outdoor market along the attractive coast.
And then a slow, slow, 3 hour rail crawl through what I guess are technically the Alps,
something that became apparent as half the train disembarked at Limone Piemonte, where the snow banks seemed to attack the carriage.
Till that point the journey had been a noisy affair, a group of lady skiers intermittently munching and shouting relentlessly about, well, how do I know?
Beyond the slopes and beyond Cuneo into industrial Turin it calms down.
In fact, for a city of 800,000 it’s too quiet, serene almost.
Coming from Genoa’s chaos it feels a different world, and I’m not sure I like it .
But perhaps I just need food.
retiredmartin 